Abstract
Archaeological and monumental sites function as important reservoirs of plant diversity, yet their conservation role remains largely unrecognized. Across the Mediterranean, they function as overlooked reservoirs of plant diversity and should be recognized as part of the conservation estate. Here we present the first basin-wide assessment of plant diversity in AMSs, surveying 69 sites across 17 countries. We documented 3,337 vascular plant taxa, including 113 strictly endemic (3.4%) and 233 regionally endemic taxa (7.0%), together with 573 taxa listed on international Red Lists and 679 on national Red Lists. Plant richness was driven by the regional species pool rather than site area, indicating that AMSs capture a substantial fraction of surrounding biodiversity regardless of their size. These findings challenge the dominant view of archaeological sites as cultural assets threatened by vegetation and instead identify them as hybrid nature–culture systems that already deliver measurable biodiversity outcomes. We argue that legal protection of cultural heritage has unintentionally generated an “umbrella effect” for biodiversity, and that recognizing AMSs as Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures could substantially expand the conservation estate, with major implications for European and global biodiversity goals.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all correspondents who have provided personal technical reports, grey literature studies on the cited sites, and personal comments, which are of great value and have contributed to the development of this important international work. The authors acknowledge the support of National Biodiversity Future Centre (NBFC) to Department of Science/University of Roma Tre.
Funding
This research was funded by the Dipartimento d’Eccellenza CUP ECCELLENZA_2023-27_BMCAE and by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) under the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
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Figure S1. Residual analysis of the combined species-richness model, represent the difference between observed and predicted site-levelspecies richness after accounting for site area and country species pool. Dashed lines indicate ±1.5 SD thresholds used to identify exceptionalperformers.
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Albani Rocchetti, G., Hosseini, Z., Abeli, T. et al. Biodiversity conservation in archaeological sites: a Mediterranean-wide assessment.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-73052-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-73052-2
Source: Ecology - nature.com
